


A Hole In My Head

by notrocketsurgery



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Demon!Stiles, Multi, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:13:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notrocketsurgery/pseuds/notrocketsurgery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trying to avoid tempting fate on Halloween, the Pack decides to avoid the holiday festivities all together, but Allison is hoping to talk them into some pre-Halloween underaged clubbing. The resident fortune teller at the goth club they visit has a frightening reading for Stiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tempting Fate ...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to avoid tempting fate on Halloween, the Pack decides to avoid the holiday festivities all together, but Allison is hoping to talk them into some pre-Halloween underaged clubbing.

Before October even arrived, the Pack decided against planning anything for Halloween. It would just seem like they were gluttons for punishment if they made plans on that night; it would just be too perfect, tempting fate to bring out some new and fresh horror to Beacon Hills by pretending they had lives of any sort. Especially on Halloween. 

However, that didn’t mean they couldn’t have some sort of fun beforehand, right?

That is why, a few weeks before Halloween in the cafeteria at school, Allison decided to try to talk everyone into going to the goth club in the city. She’d heard they weren’t picky about fake IDs if you went on Thursdays, and the cover was cheap. She’d heard it was equal parts frightening and magical. Everyone thought it was a terrible idea.

“I just don’t understand why we aren’t going to dress up for, y’know, actual Halloween,” Lydia questioned. She was still in the dark about all things supernatural, and while her Halloweens were generally of the Mean Girls variety, she didn’t understand why people were suddenly too grown up for everyone’s second favourite holiday.

Awkward glances were shared between the rest of the group; Scott, Stiles, Allison, Jackson, and Isaac. Stiles spoke up; “My dad went on his annual ‘Teenagers _blah blah_ Halloween _blah_ toilet paper _blah blah_ Sheriff stuff _blah_ ’ rant, but he seemed really worried about us this year with everything that’s been going on, so I said I’d talk us into staying in to keep safe.” People couldn’t tell him that his penchant for talking didn’t come in handy at times. Quickest lies in the West: sharp-shooter Stilinski! _PEW! PEW!_

Lydia rolled her eyes, but after what had happened at her last party, she wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to host another social event.

“I heard they have, like, a fortune teller at the club. She has her own little room and reads tarot cards or something like that! It could be really fun! Please guys?” Allison tried to drum up some enthusiasm. Her gaze passed rather pathetically over the group; Lydia absently applying lipgloss, Stiles very obviously avoiding her as he picked at his food with his fork, and even Scott scratching the back of his head and looking as far off as possible.

Pressing her lips together, finishing with her lipgloss Lydia quipped “You guys actually believe in that fortune telling supernatural garbage?”, causing another round of awkward glances. Considering that three of the people present were werewolves, and one was a hunter of Things That Go Bump, they wouldn’t put it past the universe’s sick sense of humour to also reveal that witches, psychics, vampires, or the Easter Bunny were all real and very likely living in Beacon Hills.

Sensing their uncomfortable tension, Lydia huffed and stood to leave. “You guys are all freaks. Whatever,” she snapped, her boots clicking on the cafeteria’s hard floor as she took off, slinging her messenger tote over her shoulder gracefully.

Scott shucked Stiles in the shoulder, “Nice save. Is your dad really that worried about us?”

Stiles didn’t even look up at Scott as he watched Lydia walk away, “Wouldn’t you be?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's brief, but I've got a few more chapters to put up tonight.  
> Hopefully this will entice me to keep my ass in gear and keep writing this!
> 
> I'm always looking for technical or inspirational help; e-mail me!
> 
> Also, I don't want to give too much of the story away before I've even wirtten it, so I will add tags and such as new elements arise. Hope that's ok with you guys!


	2. The Cards Were Stacked Against Us ...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison talks the Pack into some under-aged clubbing. The resident fortune-teller at the goth club they attend has a frightening reading for Stiles.

Well, if Stiles wasn’t so secure in his awesomeness, he’d have felt a touch overdressed.

Allison and Lydia seemed to have been on the same wavelength as Stiles: Allison was wearing a black, body-hugging cat-suit that he assumed was part of her Hunter wardrobe, knee-high leather boots with frightening heels, and her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail that made her austere black makeup all the more imposing. And the joke of having Scott on a dog leash wasn’t lost on anyone but Lydia. Lydia, who was wearing a purple blouse, black silk tie, all encased by a shockingly curve-enhancing corset, and a black pencil skirt. She wore heavy, sweeping eyeliner with her hair pulled back in a tight bun, held in place with chopsticks that matched the black fan she carried to tie her whole look together.

Lydia blushed, and Stiles didn’t realize it was because he’d been staring until Scott gave him a friendly nudge.

Stiles was wearing a short-sleeved black button-up shirt, with a red silk tie. He had on a pair of black skate-shorts, red suspenders hanging from his waist, and red Converse All-Stars. He even let Allison put black eyeliner and nail polish on him. A proper goth if he ever saw one!

However, Isaac, Jackson, and even Scott (besides his dog collar) went with a more casual look; black t-shirts, and jeans. These guys were boooooring.

After fussing over each other’s hair, making sure everyone looked as old as possible, and double checking birthdays, names, and astrological signs that matched their fake IDs, the group went to the entrance of the club. As Allison had explained, their doorman was pretty indulgent when it came to minors, so they had no problem getting in after answering the standard skill-testing questions.

Once inside, everyone understood why Allison had described the club as frightening and magical; the lights shifted in bizarre patterns over all the people within, making it hard to tell who was wearing makeup, and what was a trick of the lights. Everyone was uniquely different, and there was a practiced air of nonchalance-masking-judgment coming from everyone as the teens entered. 

Along one side of the long, t-shaped club the wall was exposed stone and mortar, with inlayed areas filled with unlit candles that had melted into massive puddles, encasing skulls and empty bottles. The other side was a long bar, with a few small tables and booths scattered throughout, and at the far end, the cross of the T, was the DJ and main dance floor.

They had decided beforehand not to drink, but apparently Isaac and Jackson forgot that agreement as they fled to the bar, hands already signaling for service.

The music was not at all what Stiles had expected. Rather than wailing guitars and constant screaming, there was thrumming bass and fragile sounding female vocals played over dreamy soundscapes or stomping beats and techno vibes. He was happy to hear something that wouldn’t make his ears bleed, and even happier that he didn’t seem to be the worst dancer in the joint. He happily followed Lydia onto the dance floor, Allison following him, and Scott obviously following his leash.

They danced for some time, Scott and Allison disappearing at some point, and Isaac and Jackson taking their place to awkwardly bounce and nod their heads to the beat of the music. 

Needing a break, Stiles decided it was time to go find this fortune teller. Dragging Lydia, the two cut through the meager Thursday crowd to find the teller’s private room.

They found it, a door just next to the coat-check. As they approached, a hulkling of comic book proportions, dressed in a slick black suit, stepped out from the door and crossed his arms over his chest. This guy was serious business. He had a short mohawk, and strange markings tattooed in black on the backs of his hands. Stiles gulped and looked up at him, putting his arm around Lydia’s shoulders.

“Which one of you first?” the Hulkling asked.

“Well, we were thinking of going in tog-” Stiles started to reply, before being cut off.

“No. One at a time. You,” Hulkling pointed at Lydia. A small concerned look crossed her face as she glanced at Stiles. She snapped her fan open and began fanning herself, blowing that concern away with a cool breeze and approached the door with as much womanly confidence as Stiles had ever seen.

“Of course _me_. Ladies first, always.” She winked as she passed through the door, Hulkling following her and closing the door behind him. Stiles leaned against the wall and waited for her exit.

After about 15 minutes, Lydia stepped out of the room. Her face was flushed and she fanned herself forcefully, stomping to Stiles. “Whatever. That was just creepy. And not like ‘she knew everything!’ She was just a creep. Ugh!” she huffed again before walking off to find Allison.

“Uh, ok. I guess I’ll jus--” Stiles started to himself as Hulkling stuck his head out of the teller’s room, pointed aggressively and ordered “Ok, now you. Let’s go!”

Stiles sheepishly entered the small, elaborately decorated room. He immediately understood why Lydia was so flushed. The room was cramped, and the heat coming off their bodies and the lit candles was cloying and oppressive. Stiles loosened his tie and sat down in the only available chair as Hulkling stepped in, closed the door and crossed his arms over his broad chest again. As the door closed, the pounding music and shouting bar patrons suddenly disappeared with a click; the room was soundproofed and now only a muffled thump could be heard from the club.

 _'Alright, more creepy....I can’t hear them. But they can’t hear me either.'_ Stiles thought to himself.

The fortune teller was a waifish young lady with a short blond bob, no eyebrows, and clear green eyes. She wore a renaissance fair type of outfit; long, dangling sleeves, black lace, a corset, crinoline, and several pieces of very heavy looking jewelry.

As Stiles sat, waving some incense smoke out of his face, she slowly dragged her eyes up over him and smirked, knowingly. “You shouldn’t be here...” she began.

Stiles squirmed in his chair. It didn’t take a genius to see that he was underaged, but he didn’t expect anyone to be so up front about it now that they were inside. “Look, I’m paying you, just like eeeeeeveryone else. It’s fine!” Stiles explained, sliding the $10 he owed for the reading across the table, trying to remain calm as the teller eyed him and Hulkling audibly grunted behind him.

“No. That’s not it...” She very gently slid the money back at Stiles before holding her hand up to silence him. She really must be psychic if she already knew he was about to start running at the mouth. “I mean that you... and your friends...”

She paused, picking up her stack of tarot cards and shuffling them with a dealer’s precision. Stiles gulped hard, sweat beading on his brow. Next, as the teller spoke in short, truncated phrases, she laid cards facing Stiles.

“You shouldn’t...” the Devil card

“Have come here...” the Tower card.

“At _all_...” the Death Card.

Stiles dragged the chair backwards and started to rise before two meaty hands clamped down on his shoulders, thrusting him back into the chair with blindingly painful and uncalled-for force. Stiles suddenly felt dizzy and had alternating black flashes and white orbs burning before his eyes. The world pitched, twisting his stomach, and his head took to pounding. “I...nghuh....I, fuck...”

The teller held up her slender hand once again, her bangles clanking down her wrist and silencing Stiles’ useless mumbling. “Listen, pup, we’ve made it clear that you weren’t welcome in our establishments. We warned you. Now, heed this warning and get out before I make things get desperate for your whole group!”

Hulking pulled the chair back and tipped it forward, ejecting Stiles. He barely caught himself in time to avoid falling to his knees. Putting his hands on the table to steady himself, Stiles groaned as his shoulders seared with pain. Without any further words, Stiles crashed out of the teller’s room, his balance still eluding him.

He found the entire Pack standing outside. Allison, concerned and more than a bit fed-up, stepped forward. “You were in there for over 45 minutes!” Before Stiles could argue she admonished, “Can we please just get out of here?”

Having already gotten their things from the coatcheck, the gang flooded out of the front doors and into the street, Stiles admitting that he didn’t need to be asked twice to leave after what the fortune teller had laid out for him.

“Well, at least I palmed my $10 off the table when I fell. Yeah, like I was going to pay for _that_!” Stiles joked awkwardly as he carefully slid into the driver’s seat, wondering what the teller said to Lydia. He’d have to wait until they were home, as she was driving with Jackson.

“Dude, what was all that about? Should we be worried?” Scott stuck his head into the front seat between Isaac and Stiles, seriously concerned for Stiles.

Stiles gulped, confessing “We...uh...we need to talk to Derek.”


	3. All Marked Up & Read To Go...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day after their night out, the Pack (particularly Stiles) nervously tries to prepare themselves to tell Derek about what had happened. But really, what -did- happen?

Jackson drove Lydia home, and Stiles dropped off both Allison and Scott. Isaac took his own way back to the Den, offering to let Derek know they needed a Pack meeting. No one was keen on calling him or texting him this late at night with news of what had happened that night.

What _had_ happened?

Stiles stood in his bedroom, twisting and bending in his full-length mirror. He had showered, washed his face, and taken off his nail polish. All the final vestiges of his gothic night out had disappeared down the drain. All except these two. These two frightening bruises on his shoulders.

Stiles winced as he passed a finger around the contour of one of the bruises; they were tender and a fierce shade of purple-green. Each was a perfect print of the Hulkling’s hands. They were painful even to look at, and spreading from the main shape of each purple finger were small, numb, red rashes.

“Awww, fffu---I know I’m a delicate little thing, but this is ridiculous, man.” Stiles said to his reflection. He’d taken much worse beatings during lacrosse practices and never bruised so seriously. He was a bit frightened by the marks the Hulkling had left on him, considering the fortune teller’s general ‘evil fucking psycho witch’ vibe. Grimacing, Stiles touched the bruises once more and decided the longer he looked at them the longer he was going to keep inflicting pain upon himself in the mirror. That might be some people’s thing, but Stiles wasn’t into exploring that at the moment and figured that the train of thought he was on at the moment was a sure sign he should be going to bed.

\-----

He awoke the next morning to the double-buzz of his cellphone receiving a text message. He coughed deeply, dislodging sleep from his throat as he rolled over to check it; “Pack meeting. 6:00. Forest.”

Derek.

Instantly, a second message came in, sent only to Stiles and not the rest of the Pack. “What did you do?” Stiles tried to sigh, but his throat was raw and phlegmy and it came out a strange crackling gurgle.

Stiles carefully dressed himself. The bruises didn’t look any worse today, but they felt unbearably sore. Despite his better attempts to distract himself, his thoughts kept coming back to their throbbing and how he would have to try and explain this to Derek and the others. Especially since he didn’t understand what had happened himself.

He checked the text again. Stiles couldn’t help but notice that Derek never called the meeting place ‘my place’ or ‘Hale house’ anymore, or even ‘the creepy abandoned building I survived in for months cuz I’m a sourwolf filled with manpain’. He always said ‘the forest’, refusing to acknowledge his ownership of the building, or his connection to what happened there. Stiles felt sad for Derek sometimes.

\----

The day at school was rather uneventful; aside from being checked in on by Scott, the Pack avoided discussing what happened the night before. Lydia was being particularly clingy, which would have made it impossible even if they had wanted to talk about things more in-depth.

At the end of the day Jackson drove Lydia home, and Stiles felt like a bit of an ass as he was so caught up in his own looming problems that he hadn’t even checked in with Lydia to make sure that whatever the fortune teller had said wasn’t still bothering her. He watched as Lydia and Jackson pulled out of the school parking lot and waved meekly at them, starting up his Jeep and swinging around to the other side of the school to pick up Scott and Allison.

“Guys. _Guys. **GUYS**_!” Stiles shouted about 10 minutes into their trip, punctuating his last shout with a honk from the Jeep’s horn. He was already a bit annoyed that they’d both sat in the back seat when he picked them up, because he hated feeling like their personal taxi driver, but the making out was just too much.

After fixing her hair and managing to sit facing forward in her seat, Allison looked at Stiles sheepishly in the rearview mirror, “Sorry....so, uh, what exactly happened in there last night? Cuz I’m guessing that’s what all of this is going to be about,” she inquired.

Stiles described what happened, stressing Scott out more than once as he took his hands off the wheel to enhance his story with a flourish of the hand. Allison giggled as Stiles told his story, which only encouraged him.

“Really though?” Allison smirked, “Stiles, I don’t know if you know anything about tarot cards, but the Devil, the Tower, and Death are like... _the_ most obvious choices for a spooky reading. They’re kind of clichéd, y’know? Are you sure she wasn’t just trying to scare you so you’d have to ask more questions and stay longer? I mean, she’s probably just some con-lady or whatever.”

Stiles started to feel silly. Mostly because he did, in fact, know a bit about Tarot...now. He’d been googling it all day on his phone between classes, and so he did also know that the cards the fortune teller pulled for him were, as Allison said, the tackiest clichés in the bunch. Maybe he was just over reacting.

But then the searing pain in his shoulders reminded him that, no, this really was a big deal. This was so much more than those three cards.

Pulling up to the burned out husk of the old Hale house, Stiles breathed deeply and nervously, bringing up more phlegm. He spat clumsily as he got out of the car and Allison eyed him awkwardly. Stiles’ face took on a distinctly pink hue.

Jackson and Isaac had arrived a few moments before and were standing on the porch with Derek. Stiles couldn’t help but notice that Derek’s uniform of dark t-shirt, dark jeans, and leather jacket had begun to rub off on his Pack. Even Erica and Boyd, when they bothered to actually show up at meetings, had been dressing similarly.

It took all of Stile’s willpower to not break into his best attempt at a Jets vs. Sharks ballet-jazz number. He settled for snapping as he walked up to the front of the house, garnering a confused glance from Jackson and Isaac.

“What is wrong with you?” Derek interjected suddenly, throwing off Stiles’ rhythm.

“What? I mean, c’mon, look at you guys! It was that or you’re the T-Birds and, well, I most definitely am not a Pink Lady!” Stiles stuttered, a bit uncomfortable that they hadn’t even attempted to go through the motions of their regular Pack meetings.

Derek glared confusedly at Stiles, “I don’t even know-...Stiles, I mean it. There’s something wrong with you. What’s wrong?” He stalked up to Stiles and stood not even two inches from the teen and breathed in deeply. The Pack paused, uncomfortable, as Stiles looked around; for an answer, for a hand, for a sign that the world was ending.

“Uh....” Stiles gingerly placed his hand on Derek’s chest and pushed back (really stepping back himself to make room, because he wasn’t actually going to try to push Derek Hale. Stiles didn’t have a death wish.) “Well, that’s the thing. I don’t know, and I was hoping you could tell me. From outside my personal bubble. Thanks.”

Derek glared down at Stiles, still a bit too close for Stiles’ comfort. Derek let out what would be considered by Derek-standards, a minor growl, “Explain, Stiles.”

And so for the second time that day, Stiles went over the events that took place in the fortune teller’s private room at the club. He mentioned the Hulking, and the cards. He mentioned the teller’s warning, and finally he stripped his shirt off and showed the group his bruises.

When Stiles removed his shirt, Derek was already mid-fit, but the group suddenly fell silent. Derek had been particularly upset that the Pack had even gone into that part of town without telling him, but as the hand-shaped bruises on Stiles’ shoulders became visible he swooped towards Stiles again, making him flinch, and very very gently touched one of the violent discolorations. As Derek touched him, Stiles blushed but felt a strange revulsion as well.

“You’re all idiots.” Derek whispered matter-of-factly.


	4. So It's Basically a Hellmouth?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek breaks down some supernatural history in Beacon Hills, and none of it makes Styles feel any better about what the fortune teller said, or the marks the Hulkling left on his body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd, so forgive me for any screw-ups.  
> My Editor In Chief may be unavailable until after the holidays, so anyone who'd like to review my upcoming chapters should send me a message or e-mail me!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's been reading and rec'ing this story! over 100 hits in less than 24 hours!  
> I'm so stoked!

Stiles slipped his shirt back on and Derek huffed his way back into the house. The rest of the Pack shared some tense glances as each tried to figure out what unholy hell they’d loosed upon Beacon Hills. Stile’s stomach knotted, worry sprouting like a seed inside him as he tried not to imagine what he might have gotten himself into. He shivered and cleared his throat, gracelessly bringing up more phlegm before following the group through the door of Hale House.

The place was by no means livable. The group had talked Derek out of sleeping there any longer, and while they had cleaned the place up and made minor repairs to the heart of the old house to ensure no one would fall through the floor (again), they couldn’t let Derek use it as his den. It wouldn’t be healthy for anyone. As a training centre, however, it offered distance from the town, and lots of open space to shift and run, so they couldn’t allow it to be torn down either. Stiles had fought hardest to keep the house standing. He knew Derek would never say it, but this was the last remnant of his family and it was important to him. Stiles understood all to well, and had a box of his mother’s clothes at home to prove it.

As Derek sat in the parlor, the others sitting in the mishmash of chairs and couches they’d accumulated in that room, he slowly but obviously adopted the face of a parent; _‘I’m not mad...just..._ disappointed _’_. He passed his hands over his face and tried to gather his thoughts while the others shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

“You’re all idiots,” Derek started.

“You’ve told us that,” Stiles fired back unintentionally, forgetting to his his in-your-head voice. Derek shot him a shocked and angry face. Ah, good, no longer just disappointment. We’ve moved into familiar territory; Derek Hale is mad.

“Maybe you need to hear it again, idiot.” Derek’s ability to be imposingly rageful and keep a stone-face the whole time was unnerving. “You’ve pissed off some powerful people, and I’m not sure how badly. This is a mess.”

“Who? What people? I mean, we were at a club, not some sacred masonic temple!” Allison insisted.

“You’re actually about half wrong there,” Derek looked at her, his ‘disappointed’ face returning.

“The club you guys went to is a front. It’s part of a larger collection of buildings that houses a coven of very powerful witches in this city. That entire stretch of the city is in their stewardship, and it a strictly no-go zone for us. You were all incredibly stupid for going there. You should have known bet-” Derek was cut off.

“Known better?! Are you kidding?” Stiles jumped from his chair and launched himself a few feet closer to Derek, indignant. “How are we supposed to know about thi-” Now Stiles was the one being cut off, as Derek crossed the space in one long stride and swooped into Stiles’ face.

In a low growl, poignant and sharp, Derek explained “How? By listening to me! I’m. The. Alpha.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, knowing full well that Derek was the Alpha, but trying to keep himself from asking him _‘Why? I know chimps who could be better werewolf Alphas than you!’_ , but while Derek was inexperienced and sometimes incompetent as a pro-active Alpha, he knew things that would help them after-the-fact to clean up any messes they got themselves into. Things that no one else knew. So Stiles kept his mouth shut and sat back down, appeasing the wolf in Derek just enough for him to back off. Stiles was having a hard time putting up with Derek’s garbage today.

Allison tried to calmly keep things moving, “I thought witches were, like, ‘love and light’ and ‘harm ye none’ and stuff. Those marks on Stiles’ shoulders don’t look very ‘harm ye none’.”

“That’s Wiccans. They’re a whole other breed. These are witches.” Derek started explaining, “They don’t live by a specific moral code, because it’s not a religion exactly. This particular group has been in Beacon Hills for forever because that part of the city is a hotspot for magical energy. They tap into it for....for, well, whatever they do. And they are _fiercely_ protective of it.”

Derek paused for a moment to let the implications of what he’d just said sink in.

A minor history lesson ensued, and the Pack finally had some semblance of why all the paranormal stuff seemed to happen in their back yards.

The magical hotspot (or genus loci as Stiles figured out, googling on Allison’s smartphone) had drawn magical creatures to the area for as long as the city had been founded. These witches, the Hillcrest Coven, had fought tooth and nail to take stewardship of the loci and have built a supernatural ‘empire’ of sorts on top of it. While relatively small compared to groups in cities like New York, Salem, or Montreal, they still held a good deal of sway with the community surrounding Beacon Hills. Having taken control of the loci, they slowly pushed all the other supernatural beings away from it, essentially staking a claim to that part of downtown and forcing everyone else into the suburbs and surround spaces. It kind of was another reason the Hale House was so far from everything.

“So, basically, we invaded someone’s turf, and we’ve woken up with a horse’s head in our bed?” Stiles summed up.

Derek shook his head shamefully at Stiles, “If we’re lucky it’s only a horse’s head. I can’t tell what just by looking at you, but they’ve done something with you,” Derek was trying to keep the group from being frightened, and so he avoided saying ‘they’ve done something _to you_ ’, “maybe it’s just the bruises; so as long as we heed their warning they’ll fade, but these witches are a bit on the dramatic side...so....” he looked at Stiles, almost apologetically.

The group all hung their gazes on Stiles, instantly making him uncomfortable. He sheepishly shrunk in on himself and fingered gently at the bruises under his shirt, the stab of pain jump starting a coughing fit from deep in Stile’s chest. His coughs rattled his ribcage and he thought to himself _‘I’m gonna throw up.’_

\--------

The rest of the Pack meeting was spent explaining what the dynamics were between these two groups, and why just walking up with a bouquet of flowers and an ‘I’m sorry’ card weren’t going to cut it.

The breakdown was this:

Witches were something like a business class mafia. They had profits, and annual general meetings, and they promoted from within and all that jazz. The magic was a means to get whatever one individual witch or group wanted. They could be hired out for protection, or for ensuring profit, etc. It was surprisingly bureaucratic, according to Derek. They saw themselves as the highest point of the supernatural world, which is why they pushed away other creatures and people.

The reason the Pack’s infiltration of their turf was so offensive was that, to the witches, werewolves are animals. Unclean, uncontrollable, and offensive. They were a liability to their organization, and the feud between them was long-standing.

Werewolves didn’t bother much with witches because they had their own families and packs to deal with. They were insular by nature, and didn’t require much in the way of witchy services. Werewolves also avoided witches, as many other supernatural creatures did, because the witches’ manipulation of energies and constant power struggles tended to fray their minds. They often became paranoid (“Y’don’t say!?” remarked Stiles), and unhinged. It was considered a tradeoff well worth the suffering in the witches’ community, but it unnerved the werewolves who relied so completely on their keen senses and clear faculties to hunt, track, and maintain their own supernatural status.

After bringing the group up to speed, Derek began to get snippy and agitated. Stiles was mirroring that in a big way and it was obvious that the stress on both of them was becoming a distraction. The group decided to head home for the night.

\-------

Stiles slid carefully out of the driver’s seat as Scott and Allison came out of the other side. They’d stayed mostly quiet during the ride back to Scott’s place, and their splitting up was stilted and awkward. No one quite knew what to say to Stiles at this point.

“Well, uh,” Scott smiled meekly at Stiles, “just text me or whatever if a horse’s head shows up in your bed, k bro?” they both forced a laugh, and Scott pulled Stiles in for a bro hug, complete with the requisite three slaps on the back. Stiles winced.

He waved as comically as he could muster, trying to keep people from pitying him any more than they already did, as Scott and Allison walked into the house.

And then Stiles promptly unloaded his stomach into a nearby bush, crying.


End file.
